These will particpate alongside regulators and stakeholders from the supply and demand side of the remittance industry will be meeting at the event to address lowering transaction cost by leveraging new innovations in the African mobile financial services ecosystem.

The barriers to cost-reduction, challenges and opportunities in the African remittance market, improving efficiency at the last mile, the role of non- bank financial institutions and the emergence of digital remittances such as mobile money, online transfers and crypto currencies in lowering remittance cost for Africans are some of the subject matter areas to be considered at the conference.

According to the event director at Mobile Money Africa, Emmanuel Okoegwale, the continent had made great strides in mobile technology adoption and penetration.

“However, despite the pervasive coverage of such mobile networks across Africa, technological innovation has yet to drive down costs in Africa’s remittance markets,” he said.

Africa pays nearly $2 billion a year due to the higher-than-average cost of sending money to the continent with average cost to transfer money to sub-Saharan Africa at about 12 percent, compared with a global average of 7,2 percent, according to the Overseas Development Institute, a United
Kigdom think-tank.